Studying at University

Digital skills have always been important for university students, even more so now students are studying in a blended learning environment.

Depending on your subject area you will develop digital skills throughout your induction programme and your course of study. 

All students need to understand the essential elements in order to participate, engage and avoid stressful situations.

Support will be provided by your subject tutors and digital experts but you may like to follow the university links below to help you to get started.

Induction guides

There are induction guides covering essential digital skills created by Digital Services and the Academic Development Unit.  These cover all the key systems you need to be familiar with to use our IT systems to study effectively.

• An introduction to University Systems: Sway (includes: Usernames and Passwords; Accessing and Downloading MS Office, and Accessing email)

There are also video tutorials which many tutors include in either Blackboard or MS Teams so look out for links to these, or ask your tutor if you can't find them. 

Digital Services support

• Borrowing a laptop
• University email account
• Free student software
• Passwords
• Printing, scanning and copying
• Beacon and quick access to your timetables

Study Smarter with technology

There is a wide range of tools which you can use to help you study effectively.  These include tools to help with reading, writing, text-to-speech, planning and organising, collaborating with others and more.  We have created a guide to recommended tools which are free to download, or are already in-built to the student computers.  

• Study Smarter with Technology: Useful tools guide

Some of the specific areas that a member of our team can help you with include:

• Using MS Teams for appointments
• Accessing online resources in Sway format
• Using Microsoft Office effectively
• Creating long documents in Word
• Using PowerPoint for presentations or academic posters
• Using Qualtrics survey software
• Managing your files and using OneDrive

Look out for workshops throughout the year or make an appointment to discuss any of the above topics.